Maimane ‘Must Recuse Himself’ – De Lille

CAPE TOWN: De Lille has acknowledged that she has reached the end of the road as Mayor of Cape Town.

Patricia de Lille has demanded that the chairperson of the Democratic Alliance federal executive James Selfe, together with the party leader, Mmusi Maimane, recuse themselves from the deliberations over her case.

De Lille told TimesLive that she had little faith that she would keep her job. She said: “As you may understand‚ given the circumstances‚ I have little faith in a positive result. The party is going through the motions, in my view, in order to implement its new recall clause.”

De Lille, who has been Mayor since 2011, and was re-elected after the municipal election in 2016 for a second term, has written a letter to the party bosses.

She has made no bones about the fact that she would go to court if she was unsuccessful in her appeal to keep her job. She delivered her letter of defence to the DA federal executive before the 3pm deadline on Wednesday.

In it, she called for the recusal of Selfe, Maimane, deputy federal executive chair Natasha Mazzone, and Bonginkosi Madikizela, who is DA provincial leader in the Western Cape. De Lille said they were biased and could not consider her case fairly.

Mazzone reported that the federal executive would consider the De Lille matter over the weekend. It was not certain that the executive will have reached a decision by Sunday.

De Lille lost of an internal vote of confidence by the DA caucus in the city council of Cape Town in April – although she had defeated a vote of no confidence brought in full council in February.

She has been accused of bringing the party into disrepute.

The federal executive can in terms of a recall clause dismiss De Lille as a party member. She would thus be dismissed as mayor.